I just finished Cure Dolly’s Organic Japanese from Scratch playlist, and now I feel the void of no longer having her as my sensei. She was my primary grammar learning source, but now I have no idea what resource I should use to continue my grammar studies. Is there anyone who also used Cure Dolly that went on to study more advanced grammar? What did you use? If this question has been asked and answered before, please direct me there.
UPDATE: I have recently purchased A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, and I actually really like a lot of the explanations.
Personally I mainly used Cure Dolly and Tae Kim for the basics, then I mainly just started reading Japanese and looking things up as they came up in the stuff I read.
I think at the beginning it’s worth going through the first 10 or so videos once, even if a lot of things fly over your head. You’re getting a rough “big picture” introduction to how Japanese grammar functions. Japanese grammar isn’t very complicated, but it is extremely different from English and other European languages, so I think it’s useful to get a global overview of the core concepts before you dig into the details.
Also don’t hesitate to use multiple supports at the same time. Cure Dolly, Tae Kim, Genki, Bunpro… They all have pros and cons and go over the grammar in slightly different ways. You may think that it’s redundant to go over the same content multiple times with multiple courses, but in my experience for basic grammar it’s well worth it. You’ll never get everything on your first pass.
I usually wouldn’t watch more than one or two videos a day. Once I got to the point where I started immersion, I would watch a video before immersing to try to identify the grammar points I just learned. You won’t retain any of it if you don’t use it or see it used. I personally wouldn’t go too hard on grammar until you have some vocabulary to work with.